Usually around this time of year I take a moment to check the U.S. domestic rates to see how they will impact on car hire USA over the christmas period but we’ve been so busy here that I haven’t had the time, then we got an email through from suppliers warning that this year could see Florida Car Hire especially, hit an all time high so I thought I better do a bit of snooping.

I visited 4 supplier sites and searched for a 7 Seater Minivan picking up on the 20/12/13 and returning 1 week later. These were the domestic prices (not prepaid prices);

Alamo Rent A Car

As you can see one weeks rental will cost $495.00 plus tax taking it above $600 per week!

Budget Rent A Car

With Budget we couldn’t even get a quote, they were fully sold out for the dates we required!

Dollar Rent A Car

Dollar Rent A Car at least have vehicles available however for the Christmas period you’ll be asked to pay $1400.49 per week!!!

Hertz

Just under a $1000.00 per week with Hertz… it does have unlimited mileage though

So as you can see Christmas pricing in October is already going through the roof and literally just at the time of writing this we’ve had confirmation that Dollar Rent A Car will be imposing a peak season surcharge of up to 108% for pick up’s between the 19/12/13 and the 31/12/13 in Florida.

So if you’re looking to get Christmas car hire USA, i’d advise getting a move on before all our suppliers following suit and raise their prices.

Budgets 2012 line up gives an indication to where car hire suppliers are taking their fleet, pointing towards the more “greener” vehicles. To support this Budget have introduced the new and redesigned Hyundai Accent, they have also taken on the Ford Focus.

50% of the vehicles in the 2012 line up will have a miles per gallon of 28 or better, the redesigned Hyundai Accent has an mpg of 40, the Ford Focus sedan and hatchback at 38 mpg, and the Ford Fiesta sedan and hatchback at 39 mpg.

Budget’s 2012 rental fleet will also include specialty vehicles such as the Ford Mustang Convertible, the Ford F-150 SuperCrew pickup truck, the Ford Econoline E-350 12-passenger van the Jeep Wrangler and the Fiat 500.

Budget have also introduced in to their premium range the Lincoln MKZ which will seat five and feature a 263-hp, 3.5-liter V-6 engine. It will also include theLincoln premium sound system and Lincoln SYNC, which allows renters to connect their Bluetooth-enabled phone, or plug in their compatible MP3 player or USB drive.

The speciality vehicles are only available from selected Budget locations and unfortuantley usrentacar.co.uk can never guarantee make or model of the vehicle you will receive, only the category.

For those of you that like statistics and fact based blogs – come on now, dont pretend like this stuff is boring and you’re not a car hire nerd Here are a couple of stats that you might find intresting. Honest!

While looking at some numbers from a data post from 2011 regarding the amount of cars each major supplier operates versus the amount of revenue generated, we can grab a snippet of which supplier is generating the most revenue per vehicle for car hire in the USA. Its not an exact science but its in the ball park.

Check out these numbers;

Cars in service

Total revenue

Revenue per car

Avis/Budget

285000

4110000000

14421.05

Dollar/Thrifty

118000

1645000000

13940.68

Hertz/Advantage

320000

4241000000

13253.13

Enterprise/Alamo

920861

11100000000

12053.94

We all know that Enterprise/Alamo is the monster player in the market with almost 1 million cars in the market but its surprising to find they are not the top dog when its comes to getting the most revenue per vehicle.

As you can see above the master’s of milking every last dime out of their vehicles is Avis/Budget making on average approximately$14,421.05 per vehicle.

Now the second hand market has been extremely buoyant for the last couple of years, and this is where the car rental suppliers are really making their profits.

So can we assume that Alamo are selling their vehicles before Budget, therefore not getting the most out of the rental revenue but getting more from the second hand market?

If you liked this post and still have a little ‘nerd time’ left to fill why not check the related blog James posted back in December.

2011 has been hard for the average Joe but for Car Hire USA suppliers things couldn’t have been rosier, statistics show a total revenue of $22.4 billion, an 8.1% increase over 2010.

At this time of year I always like to take a look at the statistics I think are the most important; Number of vehicles, Number of pick up locations and total revenue for the top four car hire suppliers.

AlamoRent A Car

The number one supplier and largest in the U.S. is The Enterprise group consisting of Alamo, Enterprise and National Car Rental in 2011 they had an estimated 920,861 vehicle on the road being picked up from 6187 locations across America including airports and city locations. They had 2011 total total revenue exceeding $1 Billion.

Hertz

The number 2 car hire usa supplier for 2011 is Hertz. Including their budget brand (Advantage Rent A Car), Hertz had an estimated 320,000 rental cars available from 2500 pick up locations bringing in a combined approximate revenue of $4,241,000,000.

Budget Rent A Car

The Avis/Budget Group consisting of Avis Rent A Car and Budget Rent A Car operated approximately 285,000 USA rental cars out of 2,300 locations bringing in a estimated yearly revenue of 4,110,000,000.

Dollar Rent A Car

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group consisting of Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental had 118,000 vehicles on the road from an estimated 445 USA locations bringing in a revenue of appropriately $1,645,000,000.

As you can see from these statistics the battle to buy Dollar Rent A Car between Hertz and Budget is very important in securing the number 2 spot in the U.S.

Enterprise continue to dominate the U.S. market in 2011 and the likely hood of anyone toppling them is very slim.

For the past 3 years we have been keeping a keen eye on the annual JD Power Rental Car satisfaction study.

Now in its 16th year, the study measures overall domestic customer satisfaction with USA car rentals at airports by examining six factors (listed in order of importance): costs and fees; pick-up process; return process; rental car; shuttle bus/van; and reservation process.

Overall satisfaction in 2011 averages 758 on a 1,000-point scale, up from 750 in 2010, driven by increases in satisfaction across all six factors compared to 2010.

“Rental car companies continue to build upon the improvements made in 2010 and are bouncing back from the lower satisfaction levels reported in 2008 and 2009,”

Stated Stuart Greif, vice president of the travel practice at J.D. Power and Associates.

“As positive as this increase in satisfaction is, there remains ample opportunity for rental car companies to further delight their customers in the future, particularly in leveraging technology.”

But who was top I hear you cry?

For the last few years Enterprise Rent A Car have run away as top of the car hire tree…. so did they finish top this time?…..The answer – NO

Well what about Budget Rent A Car?…again NO.

Dollar Rent A Car? – NO

Alamo? – NO

Thrifty Car Rental? – again NO…

The overall winner was little known independent car hire company ACE Rent A Car, a domestic specialist who although have been getting good reviews in the past have never quite managed to hit the criteria for entry as beaten all the muti billion pound companies…. so a massive congratulations to them. It appears they truly do live by their company moto of “Take care of the customer and everything will take care of itself.”

Three of the four big guns of USA Car Hire released their quarter 3 results this week.

Avis/Budget, Dollar Rent A Car and Hertz all posted extremely healthy results compared to the same period in 2010, promoting the question’ recession! what recession?

The Avis Budget Group reported revenue of $1.6 billion, an increase of 7% versus third quarter 2010. For it’s U.S. arm this represented a revenue increase of 6% mainly due to an increase in volume and additional sales.

Dollar Rent A Car for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30. reported a net income of $66.6 million, or $2.13 per diluted share, compared to a net income of $49.2 million, or $1.62 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2010. Scott L. Thompson, DTG president and CEO stated;

We are pleased that the company is reporting the highest quarterly profit in its history, we remain keenly focused on profitable revenue growth, productivity initiatives, cost control and disciplined fleet management.”

Hertz also reported a strong 3rd quarter with worldwide revenues of $2.4 billion, an increase of 11.3% year-over-year boosted by the growth in U.S. insurance replacement; 30.9% volume growth in their low cost bran; and 14.4% revenue growth in worldwide equipment rental which helped them generate a Corporate EBITDA margin of 42.1%for the quarter.

What about Alamo? I hear you cry. Well Alamo Rent A Car, who are owned by Enterprise Holdings are the only major USA Car Hire company to be privately owned and therefore are not required to post quarter results however they have provided highlights of its fiscal year; recording $14.1 billion in worldwide revenues, up more than 12% from $12.6 billion in 2010, which likewise represented a 4% increase over fiscal 2009.

So in summary Car Hire USA looks extremely healthy, a very buoyant second hand car hire market has helped boost revenue and demand is exceeding supply.

With all this money the major car rental companies are making where would you like to see improvement?

The information collected is supplied by our actual customers either via the usrentacar app or by the post rental review email we send every customer.

Below is a list of Florida Car Hire vehicle types being collected from Sanford International Airport.

Vehicle Category

Alamo

Budget

Dollar

Economy

Ford fiesta,

Chevy Avero

Hyundai accent,

Nissan versa

Chevy Aveo,

Nissan Versa

Compact

Kia Forte,

Nissan Sentra ,

Ford Focus

Ford focus

Intermediate

Dodge Caliber,

Nissan Altima,

Hyundai Sonata

Dodge Caliber,

Ford Fusion

Standard

n/a

n/a

chrysler malibu

Full Size

Chevrolet Impala,

Dodge Charger

Ford Crown Victoria, Chevrolet Malibu

Chevy Impala,

Ford Taurus

Premium

Buick Regal

lincoln towncar

Ford Crown Victoria

Luxury

Cadillac CTS

Hyundi Genesis

lincoln towncar

Convertible

Ford Mustang,

Crysler Seabring

Ford Mustang,

Mitzubishi Eclipse spyder

Ford Mustang

7str Minivan

Dodge Grand Caravan,

TOWN AND COUNTRY Chrysler

Chrysler voyager town and country people carrier, Dodge Dodge Grand Caravan

Dodge grand caravan

8str Minivan

Toyota Sienna,

n/a

n/a

12str Minivan

n/a

Ford E350

Ford E350

15str Minivan

Ford Econoline

n/a

n/a

Intermediate SUV

Jeep Patriot

Dodge journey

Ford escape

Standard SUV

Jeep Grand Cherokee,

Chevrolet Traverse

Chevrolet Equinox, Jeep Grand Cherokee

Ford Explorer

Full Size SUV

Chevroleot Suburban ,

Dodge Durango

ford explorer, Dodge Durango, GMC Acadia

Chevrolet Tahoe

n/a – not applicable, supplier doesn’t offer this category.

Please note that the information above is provided by usrentacar.co.uk customers and does not guarentee the make or model described. The information also doesn’t take in to account any upgrades either purchased locally or given free of charge by the supplier.

As you can see the vehicle types generally do not waiver that much from Orlando International Airport, although it was interesting to note that I could find no alternative Convertible being given by Dollar Rent A Car, all our customers received Ford Mustang in Florida.

Back in July I posted about the current car hire wait times at Orlando International Airport, today I thought it might be an ideal time to revisit this post and see if any of the supplier have managed to decrease their queue times.

Wait Time is a feature of the usrentacar voucher app, which can be downloaded for free from either the apple store or the Android Market, the app allows usrentacar customers to view the wait time for their specific supplier for that day or display the overall average time for that location. All the times displayed are specific to the customers pick up location and supplier.

Customer’s are encouraged to leave their own wait time which helps us build up the appropriate data.

In July when I posted about the average wait times at Orlando International Airport, Alamo Rent A Car and Budget Rent A Car were top of the tree with an average wait time of 23 mins, 3 months on lets take a look at the results.

Average Supplier Wait Time at MCO

Dollar Rent A Car – Average Wait Time – 12 Minutes

Alamo Rent A Car – Average Wait Time – 16 Minutes

Budget Rent A Car - Average Wait Time – 17 Minutes

So each of our suppliers Wait Time’s have improved since July, however hats off to Dollar Rent A Car who have decreased their average wait time at Orlando International Airport from 30 minutes to just 12 minutes! Great work guys.

What are you experiences of collecting from Orlando International Airport?

News has been pretty scant on the proposed Hertz buyout of Dollar Thrifty since Budget pulled out of the deal. So I thought today might be a good time to discuss where I believe the deal is at and what the possible stumbling blocks could be.

Hertz are still very keen to complete the purchase, and looking at recent market share analysis you can see why! At present Enterprise Holdings including Alamo National have a market share of around 40% and are the clear market leaders, up next is Hertz with around 20%, Avis Budget have 17% and Dollar Thrifty commands 5.7% , the top 4 companies combined have 83% of the total U.S. Car Rental market.

So Hertz’s move to buy Dollar Rent A Car will see them cement their position as the number 2 car rental company in the U.S.

Since Dollar posted a record share price high in June, a volatile market and the withdrawal of the Avis Budget offer, Dollar’s share price has fallen 33%, even with this decline Hertz may be forced to offer $70 a share to entice the share holders to sell, this represents a 24% premium on current stock price and the second-biggest gap of any pending U.S. deal over $1 billion. However the underlying factor is that Dollar turns over higher profits than Hertz and are presently a very health and cash rich company.

The major stumbling block I can see is the potential sale of the Hertz owned Advantage Rent A Car brand. Part of seeking FTC approval for the deal would require Hertz to sell off it’s own economy brand, but with a deteriorating U.S. market, who will have the cash or even want to take on the brand?

Dollar have set a deadline of the 10th October for all final bids to be in, however I think with Hertz being the only potential bidder this deadline will be extended.

However look for Hertz to want too get this deal done quickly rather than face competition from a newly united Avis Budget.

Breaking news this evening regarding the Dollar Thrifty Group buy out, and as the title suggests Avis Budget have decided to pull out of the running to take over the Tulsa based USA car rental supplier.

In a regulatory filing, Avis Budget sited “current market conditions” for the decision.

We have made significant progress toward obtaining U.S. regulatory clearance for the acquisition of DTG, and we believe that such regulatory clearance could be obtained. Nonetheless, we have decided not to pursue a transaction at this time in light of current market conditions.”

Avis Budget, who have recently spent £635 million on obtaining Avis Europe, made their offer, a combination of $45.79 in cash and 0.6543 shares of common stock or approximately $1.5 billion in aggregate based on stock prices at the time, back in September 2010.

Hertz came in with their own offer and to date this still stands.

My take on the Dollar Thrifty Buy Out…. and not to blow my own trumpet but…………. I said this would happen